Birthday cheers and jeers for Zuma
The president’s 75th birthday in Kliptown coincided with the anti-Zuma march
The cracks in the tripartite alliance have been further laid bare by leaders from the ANC, South African Communist Party (SACP) and union federation Cosatu being largely absent from President Jacob Zuma’s birthday celebrations.
The president’s landmark 75th birthday was celebrated in distinctly different ways in Kliptown and Pretoria, with some wishing him good health and others vehemently calling for the end of his presidency.
At Kliptown’s Walter Sisulu Square, the site where the Freedom Charter was proclaimed, nearly 10000 people came from as far as Mpumalanga to show their support for uBaba, whom many lauded for furthering their prosperity.
Mpho Mamabolo (63), from Mabopane township on Tshwane’s outskirts, woke up at the crack of dawn to await a bus, organised by the local ANC Women’s League branch, to Johannesburg. Mamabolo has been a member of the women’s league for more than two decades and said her love for Zuma has not waned in recent years.
“We want to say we love him, happy birthday Baba, may God bless him to be healthy and remain strong because he is a strong man,” Mamabolo said.
Eighty kilometres away at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, parts of a 35 000-strong largely Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) crowd sang “Happy birthday Zuma” as they crowded around a burning coffin with “Zuma” written on it.
“He must just resign. No cake, no nothing. They must give him a coffin to bury himself. Birthday present — that’s it,” said Nthabiseng Mudau (30).
Zuma received rapturous applause from the Kliptown crowd.
The ANC’s secretary general Gwede Mantashe, treasurer Zweli Mkhize and deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa were conspicuously absent from the celebrations. No explanation was offered for the absence of three of the party’s top six leaders.
Missing too from Zuma’s birthday celebration were tripartite alliance leaders from the SACP and Cosatu — although the federation’s president, S’dumo Dlamini, made it.
But some senior ANC leaders did attend the birthday bash. Jessie Duarte, deputy secretary general of the ANC, and Nomvula Mokonyane, head of campaigning, led the proceedings. Others who joined Zuma on stage included ANC military veterans association chairperson Kebby Maphatsoe and its treasurer Des van Rooyen, ANC Youth League secretary Njabulo Nzuza and women’s league president Bathabile Dlamini.
Thabang Mogale, who is 23, said he was instructed by his youth league branch chairperson to catch a bus from Mpumalanga to attend Zuma’s birthday party. He was deployed to celebrate “but also to demonstrate that the president has support,” he told the Mail & Guardian.
“Today we will defeat the idea that